Hex Lord Malacrass (original)
Hex Lord Malacrass is one of the bosses in the Zul'Aman instance. A devious plan Information taken from worldofwarcraft.com Malacrass had studied the Zandalari high priests and their ability to call upon the favor of the animal gods. He also knew that the elves had magically bound one of the mighty naaru, using it to channel the power of the Light into their own ranks. Malacrass had devised a similar plan: to seal the power of the animal gods within the bodies of the Amani's strongest warriors. Zul'jin quickly approved the plan and lent his full support. Malacrass experimented tirelessly and succeeded in imbuing four warriors with the essence of mighty animal gods: the lynx, dragonhawk, bear, and eagle. Some adventurers fear that Malacrass may have bound a fifth, even darker essence within his own soul.... The Fight Hex-lord has 4 adds (described in more detail below). Each add is a different mob type and have differing abilites and will need to be CC'd, off-tanked, or killed. During the entire fight, the Hex Lord will melee damage his highest threat target for (amount?). He will also use an ability called Soul Drain which gives him several abilities from a single class for 30 seconds (described in more detail below). After his Soul Drain buff wears off he will lose his class abilites, stop melee dps, and cast Spirit Bolts on all members of the raid. As soon as he is done with the Spirit Bolts, he will immediatly cast Soul Drain and gain a different classes' abilites (as he will no longer have the old classes' abilites) for 30 seconds. Alternating between the Soul Drain phase and the Spirit Bolt phase is basically the entire fight. After the Hex Lord reaches 80%, his Soul Drain also gives him a stackable buff which increases his size and the damage of his melee, Soul Drain abilities, and Spirit Bolts. The longer you take to kill him, the harder he becomes. Key factors of the fight are: *Dealing with the adds quickly *Keeping the raid topped off before spirit bolts *Learning how to deal with each different class ability *Healers maintaining enough mana throughout the entire fight Abilities Adds He starts with 4 random adds, much like Moroes from Karazhan. There will always be a sap/sheepable, hibernatable, banishable, and shacklable mob but additional CC types may come in to play as well. Possible adds are: Far Left (Humanoid) *'Thurg' - An ogre melee. Sap, trap or polymorph can be used. Thurg has some magic resistance and will often break polymorph and traps early. *'Alyson Antille' - A blood elf priest. Can be polymorphed or sapped. Her heals need to be interrupted. Left (Hibernatable) *'Lord Raadan' - A dragonkin which uses flamebreath and thunderclap. Can be slept or trapped. Due to his AoE abilities killing him is highly recommended. *'Slither' - A serpent with a poison bolt volley. Can be slept or polymorphed. Right (Banishable) *'Gazakroth' - An imp. Chain casts fireballs. Banish or kill it quickly. He has no aggro list and will target players at random. *'Fenstalker' - A swampwalker type elemental. Can be banished. Casts Volatile Infection on a player, dealing 1885 to 2115 Nature damage to nearby allies every 5 sec for 30 seconds. Far Right (Shacklable) *'Darkheart' - An undead wraith melee with an AoE Fear. Can be shackled or feared by a Paladin (Turn Evil). *'Koragg' - An undead wight. Can be shackled or feared by a paladin. Casts knockback and a 20 yard AoE curse Cold Stare which deals 1414 to 1586 Frost damage if spell or ability is used. Spirit Bolts Spirit Bolts deal 450 shadow damage to nearby enemies every 0.5 sec for 10 seconds. Can be resisted, but is not subject to line of sight. It increases in damage with each Soul Drain. Testing has shown that Dampen Magic/Amplify Magic does not change the overall damage for a Spirit Bolt volley. Therefore, Amplify Magic can be placed on the raid and the damage taken from the Spirit Bolts will not increase, thereby providing a nice increase to raid healing. The downside is that certain stolen class abilities (like a mage's) appear to do extra damage to Amplified targets. (Additional testing is desired over anecdotal evidence.) A Paladin's Concentration Aura (especially improved with talent points) is invaluable for allowing the raid healers to avoid pushback from the bolts. *Note: Rogues can CoS, Pallies can bubble, Warlocks can Shadow Ward, and Mages can Ice-block to avoid damage from spirit bolts. * At the initial pull, warlocks can use Rank 1 banish (for 20 seconds) on the demon or elemental add in order to provide time to re-banish it before the first spirit bolts occurs. If Rank 2 banish is used, it tends to wear of directly when Spirit Bolts starts, which makes it difficult to re-banish the add due to the pushback caused by the bolts. After the initial cycle of spirit bolts, this timing becomes less reliable because of lost time while banishing. * For warlocks, the Nether Protection talent is incredibly useful for this fight. Normally it will cause the warlock to be immune to most of the spirit bolts, drastically reducing damage taken, healing needed, and spell pushback. It is worth noting that if the warlock is specced fully into Nether Protection, they can actually become immune to the Spirit Bolts for at least four seconds, making re-banishing during Spirit Bolts much, much easier, as well as easing the work of the healers. With three talent points into Nether protection, the warlock will have a 30% chance to become immune to shadow damage; with Hex Lord casting bolts every .5 seconds, Nether Protection usually procs quite often. Soul Drains Soul Drain is a channeled debuff, places on a random member of the raid. The person drained will not suffer any direct penalties, but Malacrass will gain some abilities from the target's class, as detailed below. **Note: All heals can be interrupted by kick/pummel/bash/counterspell/shock/etc. Strategy Before starting the fight establish control methods and kill order for the adds present. Some raids may find it more useful to maintain crowd control on one or more adds through out the fight, while others will have enough DPS to kill all adds before beginning DPS on Malacrass. Note that Malacrass does not start stacking the Power Drain debuffs until his health reaches 80%. If the stacking debuffs are a problem, kill all four adds before attacking Malacrass. The raid will then not have to spend mana, casting time, and cooldowns keeping adds controlled. Focus on quickly killing the adds. Be careful not to start killing AoE-attack capable adds (like Slither) during Spirit Bolts. Spirit Bolts will be cast every 30 seconds and last 10 seconds. Spirit Bolts can not be avoided via line of sight. Rogues should focus on using Cloak of Shadows to mitigate some of this damage. Following Spirit Bolts, Malacrass will select a new target for Soul Drain randomly from the raid. Tips for specific class Soul Drains * Druid - Melee will need to watch their health due to thorns. Purge the Lifebloom quickly and dispel Moonfire as soon as possible. * Hunter - Melee need to avoid traps, this is a high DPS phase because (if traps are avoided correctly) only the tank will take damage. * Mage - It may be advisable to coordinate an interruption cycle among interrupt capable raid members to prevent spell casts. Light tank damage. * Paladin - Have a ranged interrupter focus on heals as Malacrass will often use Consecrate before healing. Dispel or Spellsteal Avenging Wrath and avoid Consecration. * Priest - Mind Control must be dispelled quickly. Heal interrupts must take priority. If you have more than two interrupters, assign one person to Mind Blast. * Rogue - Heavy Tank damage phase but raid DPS can open up. Dispel poisons to optimize heals and disarm Malacrass. * Shaman - Fire Nova Totems must be killed as quickly as possible. Establish a split interrupt rotation for the heal and chain lightning (Rogue/Shaman on Heal, Warrior on Chain Lightning). * Warlock - Remove Curse of Doom, be careful not to dispel Unstable Affliction and move out of Rain of Fire spawns. * Warrior - Melee absolutely must move out of Whirlwind. Tanks should burn avoidance trinkets to avoid Mortal Strike as much as possible. Power Drain After dropping Malacrass to 80% health he will begin to use Power Drain once every 30 seconds, increasing his size and damage by 10% and reducing all player's damage/healing by 1%. Once Malacrass begins Power Draining the DPS race begins because he will eventually become buffed enough to wipe your raid during Spirit Bolts. Additional Tips * Mages can Spell Steal the Lifebloom and Avenging Wrath from Malacrass. * Elemental Shaman are excellent interrupters for this fight because they can out-range Whirlwind, Consecration, and Fire Nova Totems. * If a healing Shaman is in the group, gathering up during Spirit Bolts will increase the efficiency of Chain Heal. * Restoration Shamans should place Earth Shield on themselves before Spirit Bolts to reduce damage pushback on heals. * All Priests should use Prayer of Mending during Spirit Bolts and Circle of Healing works very well as well. * Rogues - Hex Lord is immune to mind-numbing poison, but wounding poison works. Loot Quotes Begin instance/timed event: *Da spirits gonna feast today! Begin da ceremonies, sacrifice da prisoners... make room for our new guests! During the timed event: *Take your pick, trespassers! Any of ma priests be happy to accommodate ya. *Ya gonna fail, strangers. Many try before you, but dey only make us stronger! *Don't be shy. Thousands have come before you. Ya not be alone in your service. Nearing end of timed event: *Soon da cages gonna be empty, da sacrifices be complete, and you gonna take dere places. *Time be running low, strangers. Soon you gonna join da souls of dem ya failed to save. *Your efforts was in vain, trespassers. The rituals nearly be complete. *Make haste, ma priests! Da rituals must not be interrupted! End of the timed event: *Ya make a good try... but now you gonna join da ones who already fall. *Watch now. Every offering gonna strengthen our ties to da spirit world. Soon, we gonna be unstoppable! Pull: * Da shadow gonna fall on you... Kill adds: *Dat no bodda me. *It not gonna make no difference. *You gonna die worse dan him. Casts Spirit Bolts: * Your soul gonna bleed! Soul Siphon: * Your will belong ta me now! Power Drain: *Darkness comin' for you... Kill a player: * Dis a nightmare ya don' wake up from! * Azzaga choogo zinn! Death: * Dis not... da end of me... External links WoWDBU (French tactic) Malacrass